Pop Up Playground regrets to announce that is no longer attending PAX Australia and that the “No Controller, No Board” panel has been cancelled.
We’ve considered this carefully over the last couple of weeks, but with everything that’s happened in that time, there’s a general consensus among panel members that we are no longer comfortable participating in PAX Australia. Pop Up Playground has worked hard to make sure that the events we run and the culture of pervasive gaming we promote is inclusive and non-discriminatory.
While we have read the retractions and apologies regarding the controversial “Why So Serious?” panel and Mike Krahulik’s offensive Twitter comments about transgender people, we unfortunately feel that PAX Australia has not sufficiently distanced itself from the troubled history of Penny Arcade for us to feel comfortable appearing at this year’s event. It’s disappointing, as we love many things about PAX and would love to bring our new games tradition to the PAX audience.
[…] they wanted to be a part of PAX. Pop Up Playground announced their decision to cancel their panel, citing concerns over the maturity of other panels and Mike’s comments on transgender issues as key reasons for […]
[…] the damage was already done; after some serious discussion with all the participants in the panel, Pop Up Playground pulled our panel from PAX Aus. I and most of the other participants also pulled out of other panels we were in, […]